I report on how consciousness and community are transcending god and state, locally in Washington, DC, and globally, where ever I see progress - or backsliding, including on the feminist front! "Imagine there's no countries, and no religion, too."

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Libya's Colonel Gaddafi has to import poor mercenaries and promise them thousands of dollars for every Libyan they kill in order to try to keep control of his ever narrowing circle of influence.

He threatens civil war, just like statists left and right threaten it in this country if they can't get their way. Gaddafi wants to keep his family and his tribes' control over Libya. Demopublicans want to keep it over America. Don't get too uppity, or you know what will happen to you. Definitely, don't talk about having your own little nation with your own wacky rules and if you do, don't have a legally licensed gun dealer operating out of your home or office.

Monday, February 28 marks 18 years since the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attacked the Branch Davidian home and church outside of Waco, just because they needed a "target" to practice their new "National Response Plan" bringing teams from several cities together. The ATF agents fired from helicopters killing two and fired at the group's leader David Koresh as he tried to take the search warrant at the front door, mortally wounding his father-in-law. (Of course, said search warrant was never produced, allegedly being "all shot up" in the truck.)

Is that really that much different than what Gaddafi is doing now? Terrorizing the nation.

More than anything it was the massacre of the Davidians on April 19, 1993 that convinced voters to elect Republicans to take over Congress in 1995. Just like G.W. Bush's murderous and wasteful wars on Afghanistan and Iraq convinced them to elect Democrats in 2006. Just like Obama's continuation of those wars, his massive bank bail out and massive new health care bureaucracy terrorized millions into voting Republicans to power in the House and many state houses in 2010. How long will the cycle continue before Americans revolt against a massive welfare-warfare state? How far will we be driven into poverty and slavery? Time will tell...

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Since much of my 50s was consumed dealing with a war based on lies, II'm happy that the Iraqi code-named "curve ball" finally has told the truth: Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995. "Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

At least I had some fun and learned some lessons during yet another round of years of peace activism. I feel sorry for those who lost their lives, loved ones, homes, communities, health, sanity, etc. because of George Bush (avenging alleged plots versus his father) and his neoconservative friends' (protecting military industrial complex profits and Israeli land grabs) drive to kill Saddam and conquer Iraq. The same bunch of bastards are hoping to elect a president in 2012 in case they can't finally strong arm Obama into bombing Iran into submission - or the stone age.Someday soon the United States may have a Tunisian-Egyptian-style revolution against those bastards, be they Democrats or Republicans in office. Not a "revolution" of a bunch of government bureaucrats rioting for their bennies, a real people's revolution against our own slavery - secession from and dissolution of our special interest controlled union.

A related issue, since both articles have been sitting in tabs on my browser for a couple days - unequal distribution of wealth. Warmongers who got rich off the Iraq war are just one of the more offensive of thousands of politically connected special interest groups that used their connections to get fat government contracts - or to suppress competition and increase their own profits. Just like in the days of Kings and Lords and peasants we like to think we've escaped. In a free and competitive market unhampered by cronyism and mercantilism, far fewer corporations and individuals would become so absurdly rich, and their competitors would take it away more quickly from those which failed to compete. See this BBC article Wealth gap widens between super rich and rest. But don't buy any lines that it's some how good for all of us!

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Sunspots are temporary black spots on the Sun caused by intense magnetic activity that appear as dark spots. Sunspots expand and contract as they move around the Sun. Most solar flares and coronal mass ejections originate in magnetically active regions around sunspots.

And it is these that throw out particles that increase negative ionization levels on earth - leading to human excitability. At left, see how rapidly the number climbed in the first seven weeks of 2011? And the energy from a real big solar flare is hitting us now - so expect things to keep hopping in North African and the Middle East. (And hope the electromagnetic pulses don't fry the electrical grids!)

Of course, you don't need sunspot energy to get mad and organize and march - ask the Tea Party people who marched in really big numbers in 2009 and elected Republican budget cutters in 2010. Unfortunately, except for a few hard core tea partiers, the Republicans have no intention of making significant budget cuts, starting with cutting the military 75% and means testing social security.

States are harder pressed because they often have a smaller tax base and more politicians who caved into the public employee unions. Some were given them truly excessive pay, perks and pensions. So suddenly we're having big rallies against such cuts by public employees. (And of course it's not necessarily the most excessively paid who get the biggest cuts.)

As a libertarian I'm for the right to organize unions, strike and demand collective bargaining; and the right to fire strikers and refuse to engage in any bargaining at all. Of course, the smarter thing is to have a lot more worker owned cooperatives, including schools - without those layers of lazy and/or trouble-making administrators mandated by various levels of government.

Below are videos about one great activist, Ray McGovern, a retired CIA analyst turned peace activist. Unlike this burned out activist, he just kept going the last few years. He was arrested for turning his back on Hillary Clinton, per the video below. And then roughed up by police per the photo of his injuries here. Keep up the great work, Ray! Maybe he'll be ready to join the radical political decentralist movement once it really gets going. Secede and survive!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Yup, not only did they have a bunch of Americans recite it in their Superbowl 2011 video below, but they left in the most important phrase: "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish (government)". See other of my blog entries on that topic here.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

I read Atlas Shrugged in 1964, doubtless before many of you were born. And here it is 46 years later and I have to haul my ass to compulsory jury duty and worry about getting a compulsory search of my bags on metro. Ayn Rand may have been an egomaniacal hoaky sexually weird obsessed-with-individuality-to-a-fault worshipper of Mammon, but she got one thing right - frack the state. Meanwhile the movie is being made, one part at a time. Looks like it's pretty good... but maybe a little long. Like the book??

Monday, February 14, 2011

In case my last bracing love letter to freedom lovers below was not enough of a Valentines Day message, here's a video with a cat and dog in love. The diversity of love between species, sexes, races, ethnicities, religions and even ideologies can be a wonderful thing. Celebrate it!

Anyone who cares about peace and freedom must be aware of the nefarious role of special interests in distorting the economy, limiting our civil liberties and driving us to war. Any one - activist or observer - who cared about peace and freedom during the 2001-2003 lead up to the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq will remember how those opposing the war were attacked from without as supporting terrorists bent on destroying the United States and its allies. Not a very nice reward for organizing and/or attending five or six peace protests every week, year after year. Some war lovers still attack us - even though the war has been proved to have been based on lies and has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars and still counting.

However, many of us also were attacked from within the peace movement, at least anyone who spoke up for the rights of Palestinians or even mentioned the role of pro-Israel special interest groups in beating the war drums for over two and half years. Maybe a few of you even said something in a meeting or on a mailing list about these issues, for example about the vicious 2002 Israeli bombardment of the Jenin refugee camp. Or maybe you commented on articles circulating about the Project for a New American Century or the “men from Jinsa” or the nutty Christian Zionists. (You know, the ones who want the U.S. to start Armageddon so Jesus will return and, as the “Book of Revelation” states, kill all of those - even Jews - who don’t convert to Christianity.) And if you did say or post such things, some of you - whether Jewish or gentile - doubtless were met with instant accusations of antisemitism from one or two “peaceniks.” As we all know, politically motivated false charges of bigotry taint the credibility of those who make real charges of bigotry.

In my local peace group, which had many outspoken people, one five foot six inch “progressive” Israel defender would attack me especially for criticizing Israel. He’d never attack the 6 foot plus burly guys who posted more controversial articles and opinions. I wonder why.

It was worse on the Libertarians 4 Peace and Maryland libertarian email list where conservative quasi-libertarians would “debate” (or more frequently insult) antiwar libertarians and the "free speech" moderators let them for far too long. When insults did not silence libertarians, one five foot six inch self-proclaimed Zionist from Maryland turned to gross sexual insults and even barely concealed death threats mentioning his large gun collection - mostly against me. Again, why not against the libertarian males, including from the DC area, who posted more controversial things on the subject?

In June 2003, three months after the invasion of Iraq, I was still being attacked by these two sexist Zionists. Then I made a mistake which some Israel supporters keep trying to make my fatal mistake. I angrily responded to a news story about Republican Senator Lugar suggesting the U.S. send troops to Israel to "root out terrorists" and fight Hamas in Gaza. Between the constant harassment and the criminal suggestion that American troops should be sent to kill and be killed in Israel, I lost it for the 8 minutes it took to rant in exaggerated and thoughtless language about insights from the many news and opinion pieces I’d read about the Israel lobby’s pushing the U.S. to war.

Those who wish to see all critics of Israel silenced (if not dead and buried) have had some fun in the last six months circulating this email in various places that I will not dignify (or in one case embarrass) by mentioning. I won't even go into how sexist these guys are! So I decided it was time for a lengthier point by point commentary on that post. You can read the Lugar story, my email and my detailed response here. Most of these points are supported by the 106 articles at the libertarian “Iraq war and Israel” yahoogroup. Being forced to think about that horrific 2001-2003 period makes me realize that this whole topic deserves it’s own article at a certain popular site I frequent.

Like many other libertarian and progressive secessionists, I think we need secession from special interest controlled big government. But there are many special interests - corporations, labor unions, government bureaucrats, the military-industrial-media complex, campaign managers and staffers for political candidates, employees of organizations that feed on minorities fears of hate groups, and of course, foreign lobbies, be they Israeli/Zionist, Arab oil barons, Cubans in Florida, Taiwanese, Chinese state capitalists, etc.

To end, in June of 2003 after the U.S. just had launched a horrible war it certainly looked to millions of Americans like the pro-Israel lobby led all the other pro-war special interests. Today, the special interests are fighting among themselves, though they may yet unite for another war, against Iran or maybe even China. There is no doubt special interests will always fight for control of the government, the people, their lives and their money. Americans who want to be free, including secessionists, cannot be intimidated by harassment and threats from any special interest group that is pressing its advantage at any particular time or on any particular issue. Nor can we be intimidated by special interest group hacks, flaks, flunkies and supporters, especially those looking for someone to hate and crucify to make their own sad lives of slavery to the special interests seem meaningful. We cannot be intimidated if we are to remain a free people.

And don't forget that once in a while THE PEOPLE are a powerful special interest! Ask Tunisia's Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak - for starters.

Friday, February 11, 2011

As the Boston Globe put it: "- Why somebody at CPAC thought it was a good idea to schedule Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld immediately after Rand Paul we may never know." (In case you don't know, Paul supporters tend to be extremely anti-interventionist and anti-neocon. What other Senator has called for cutting off all foreign aid - including to Egypt and Israel.) Yoo Ha!

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Geez, those new Republicans must have been hearing a lot about it from those who voted them in. Politico says: The bill would have extended the FBI’s authority to use wiretaps on surveillance targets and to allow surveillance of “lone wolf” criminals who aren’t working with terrorist groups, provisions set to expire later this month.

Expect a lot of threatening arm twisting and demagogy the next few days to change the vote.Let's get busy all you Democrats who agree! Call you representative and tell him to abolish the whole damned thing. Stop kissing the Democrats asses because they gave you a crappy health care bill that is going down in flames constitutionally.

Below are a couple of Jewish activist I know who I photographed in 2001 outside the Israeli Embassy expressing their views on WHO the terrorists are whose "assets" should be frozen (or cut off) under the Patriot and other "terrorism" Acts.

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Inspired by the resilience of Egyptian people during their recent uprising, several notable musicians from North America have teamed up to release a song of solidarity and empowerment. The track is fittingly titled "#Jan25" as a reference to both the date the protests officially began in Egypt, and its prominence as a trending topic on Twitter. Produced by Sami Matar, a Palestinian-American composer from Southern California, and featuring the likes of Freeway, The Narcicyst, Omar Offendum, HBO Def Poet Amir Sulaiman, and Canadian R&B vocalist Ayah - this track serves as a testament to the revolution's effect on the hearts and minds of today's youth, and the spirit of resistance it has come to symbolize for oppressed people worldwide.

Friday, February 04, 2011

Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak has used his position over thirty years to accumulate 80 billion dollars - give or take 30 billion. Divided by Egypt's 80 million people, that's $1,000 for each Egyptian, in a country where the average annual income is $3,330. [Update: CNN says if it's over $55 odd billion, that makes him the richest man on the planet!]

Then there are his sons who are billionaires. There's probably another 20 government officials who've made 10 billion. Another 50 who've made 5 billion. Another 100 who've made $1 billion. Another 1000 who've made 100 million. Another 10,000 who've made $100,000. Add it all up and it's a massive rip off.

But it's not like we've got anything like that in THIS country. Despite what those conspiracy theorists would say about the revolving door between government and all the businesses it contracts with or regulates. NO! Not this country. ha Ha HA

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Actually, it was a human male who glommed on to me and won my heart who originally inspired it, but he just couldn't stay away from closet visits to the gay bars, so that was the end of that little infatuation... Of course, my roommate's old dog Maxwell (1994-2009), being "in tact," also would try to hump any dog male or female who came into sight. But at least he did it in front me so I knew what kind of naughty boy he was. (Poor old guy, last time he tried it on some twenty pound young male at the vets office, the little punk took Maxwell's 70 lbs down by the ear and he was laying there screaming his head off.) Enough gossip... Enjoy!